»/ 4.* ^ -.H

• 4r ^ •

V/-^.<^^,o^" V^'^V %/-^.^.',o^^ V^^^^* %*-^ST^\o*" ^'^

V » •• "- o.

• ay ^^

x*^ ..'.•/^^

^^•n;..

^o V" .J

• .^'^ -o^*^-»\0'5 V^^\/ %.*^'^/ *<.,'-.-.V

^' U A*- »A\V/^' \ '^ •*

^°'"*.•

^^0«. V

•A*- "^d. •-'^P** ** ^^

V**'^-'>^v ..IV'. c:^^^0

^^''^^.

A"

^^-n^. •

.^^%

S'"

*V

0* "^^ *v«f!T«* /N <r

'bv"

0* .-J.'. '*b -.*^

'bv'

•• 4.*' *. •.'i

.0* "*b 'TTT' .A

V'^'^V V'^^^*\«^' '°^'*^'?^'*aO'' "V^^^'v**" "^O^ *''^''%0'

cP.-•, V

• -%$. A*" 'j*

* «0

0^ 'b ^TvT' A

O-,. •.'•* ^0 q.. ..••' iP•*•«

'='*.

HISTORY SIMPLIFIEDAN INTERNATIONAI, PRIMER

BY ALBERT J. EDMUNDSAUTHOR OF

BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN GOSPELS

Tentative Edition

300 Copies Printed

PHILADELPHIA:Innes & Sons, 119-135 North Twelfth Street

1914

,EL3

Copyright, 1914,

BYAlbert J. Edmunds

^tE'CI,A.'Ks(iO.JO

PREFACE

j2^0ME years ago it occurred to the writer, during a walk

M^J beside the Wissahickon, that there ought to be a world-^ history agreed upon by all nations. It should deal

chiefly with the growth of religion, science, art and literature,

giving credit to each nation for what it has done. Wars mustbe limited to a few great movements of peoples. Proper credit

should be given to the neglected nations, the Chinese and the

Hindus, who were developing the arts of peace when we were

savages and pirates.

Such an outline should be taught in the schools of the world

and each nation could add its own internal affairs.

The writer broacht the idea to Charlemagne Tower, whoassisted him in bringing it to the attention of the Hague Con-

ference, biit nothing more was heard of it.

In the present year the writer had occasion to teach history

to two cliildreu, and he began by writing each century on a

separate sheet, calling the whole Our Century Book. At first

only a few striking events were written, leaving several cen-

turies blank. At the end the birth-dates of the two children

were inserted, thus connecting history with their own lives. In

one lesson they absorbed the knowledge, and saw history in

perspective as they could not do from pages too much crammed.

More events were then added on the backs of the sheets,

leaving the most important in front. It then occurred to us to

reverse the order of the centuries, and begin with our own. Wehad the sheets on steel rings, and this was easily done.

The student is advised to copy the events on separate sheets

and re-arrauge them in the usual order. Indeed it would be a

good exercise to write the facts on cards and play with them.

By asking and answering questions a profitable game could be

devised and the study of history made a pastime. It would also

iv Preface.

be well to write first only those events on the front pages whichare printed in heavy type. By thns leaving some centuries blank

the child is given a sense of relief and inspired with the confi-

dence of mastery.

Different minds will attach importance to different events,

but there is little doubt that the rise of the three great mission-

ary religions furnishes the best series of landmarks. Let the

beginner leave blank the centuries between Christ and Muham-mad, and so realize the greatness of these two mountain peaks.

But the events are of less moment than the perspective of

time. Even, the most awful crises are sooner or later dwarft

and events onCe great are eclipst by greater. What the begin-

ner most .needs is a vivid idea of the vistas of time instead of the

jumbled notions which are common.The centuries before Christ are purposely written with the

Latin word scrailum for century, so as to distinguish them at a

glance from the Christian ones. Dates not accurately fixt or not

necessary to be meuiorized are placed in their position in the

century.

The test of importance is universality. We must never for-

get that our culture has been hitherto provincial, with the Medi-

terranean for its central sea and Greece, Rome and Judea for its

three classic nations. We do not realize, for example, that at

the time of Christ the four great powers of the earth were the

Romans,, the Parthians, the Hindus and the Chinese. TheRoman Empire is allowed to dwarf all else, which is absurd,

when the Chinese became a world-power from the Sea of Japan

to the Lake Aral. (We may say the Caspian, as the two were

probably united). No more the Midland Sea of the Romans is

to be our center, but the Pacific Ocean, and our culture, from

being provincial, must become planetary.

Names of places are given thruout, that the student mayconsecrate in his memory for life the sacred spots of the world.

The heroic fields of the future will no longer be where Christian

slew Christian after praying to the same God, but where Christ

said : Peace I leave with you ; where Buddha pluckt the

Pre/ace. y

forest leaves and proclaimed the infinity of truth; where Dante

met Beatrice and Socrates drank the hemlock.Moreover the science of recent decades has changed our

attitude toward the mystic and the seer. The beautiful paintingby Violet Oakley, at the Capitol of Penn.sylvania, of GeorgeFox on the mount of vision, most aptly symbolizes this chang^'e.The seer will no longer be our butt, but our pillar of fire, andwe shall treat as sacred the spots where John and Swedenborgbeheld the Heavenly City.

It is due to the reader to know that the writer is a memberof no Church, and that the names of religious leaders are givenfrom a purely historical standpoint.

Nearly a century and a half has elapst since the appearanceof the first volume of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire (London, 177G), and it is not creditable to the Westernmind that the broad research therein set forth should havetiught us so little. It was Edward Gibbon who, following theFrench, first gave to English learning a planetarv ouUook.With all his vast classical attainments, he is not led astrav by"the vanity or ignorance of the Greeks" (Chapter XXVI, note21); and he talks, in the same chapter, as will the scholars ofthe future, about "the learned and civilized nations of the South •

the Greeks, the Persians and the Cliinese." He knew the nameof China's great historian, Sse-ma-tsien—a name still strange tocollege professors and other leaders of learning.

In order at once to furnish an authority and to direct thestudent to Gibbon, I have purposely mentioned him severaltime.s. Our knowledge of India was in his dav behind ourknowledge of China, or tlie planetary historian would surelyhave given India her due. Had he only known of the extentand power of Buddhism and other Hindu learning at the timeof Christ, tlie whole subsequent historv of New Testament criti-cism would have been changed. But in spite of this defect andsome mistakes about Zoroastrian doctrine and other matters thenunknown, he remains what he always has been—the greatesthistorian in the English tongue.

vi Preface.

Besides the usual books of reference, the writer must refer

to his publisht works for the less known authorities, and also to

the articles, from 1910 onward, by Richard Garbe, Sylvain L^vi

and other scholars, in the Deutsche Rundschau of Berlin, The

Mollis/ of Chicago, the Journal Asiatique of Paris and the Jour-

nal of the Royal Asiatic Society of London. The works of

Francis Cumont, Romesh Datt (Dutt), Leon Wieger, ihe late

Arthur Lloyd, and Professor Anesaki, of Tokyo and Harvard,

furnish many neglected facts.

Tho the result of a lifetime of study, the essay is purely

tentative, and the author hopes that better qualified scholars,

especially along the lines of social and industrial development,

will enlarge the study. The present edition is put forth with

the hope of securing such co-operation.

I am told by a rising young scholar that 1 ought to work

on this for some years yet. Doubtless I ought, but life already

lies more behind me than before, and it ma\- be now or never.

We students owe it to mankind to bring our knowledge from

the cloister into the street. The mind that has once been

trained by historical research can never be swept off by the pas-

sions of a day ; and unless the facts accumulated under academic

towers be made current coin and transformed from knowledge

into wisdom, hoanse Demos will once more forge for himself

.some tyrannous legend—divinely beautiful it may be—which will

chain the human mind for another nineteen hundred years. Mark

Twain died in 1010, believing that the legend was already forged.

V>\\\.^ pace Mark Twain, this momentous afTair is not m the

hands of the United States or of any one nation. As Myers and

Gardner have pointed out, there are forces now at work evolving

a world-religion before our eyes. And the process is going on,

not merely beside Delaware and Thames, but beside the Volga,

the Ganges and the Yang-tse-kiang. In the view of the present

writer, the two main forces thus at work are Evolution and Psy-

chical Research. The opposite truths represented by these two

oreat ideas have developt independently among Christian nations

during the past half-century. But historically they depend upon

Pre/ace. vii

the two leading religions of the world : Evolution has its basis

in Buddhism, Psychical Research in Christianity. The onerepresents an impersonal theory of the universe ascending frombelow

;the other brings to light a personal life beyond, descend-

ing from above. In the conflux of these two ideas will surelybe born the coming religion of mankind.

Some academic friends would fain warn me away from thedangeroos ground of spiritistic phenomena. But no such warn-ing is necessary in our State. We Pennsylvanians have in ourmidst a great University, which once was pledged to the per-

petual investigation of these phenomena. From the fifth to theninth decade of the last centiiry they were deservedly in disreputewith science, but since that time the immortal Myers and theUniversities of Cambridge and Harvard have forever lifted theminto academic recognition. As a generation is now in the field

which knows not of the said Pennsylvanian pledge, I will quote it:

"To the University of Pennsylvania sixty thou.sand dollars

to establish a chair of Moral Philosophy, for the investigationand teaching of religious, moral and intellectual truth, to beknown as the Adata Seybert chair, or Adam Seybert Professor-ship, provided, however, that the principles and phenomena ofwhat is known as Spiritualism shall be fully investigated by theprofessor who occupies this Professorship." (Will of HenrySeybert, Philadelphia, December 25, 1S82, p. S).

It is true that some thirty years ago, a Seybert Commissionreported adversely upon the pretensions of professional fortune-tellers, and the University of Pennsylvania has since adopted a

hostile attitude toward Psychical Research. This is unfortu-nate, because it was after the Seybert Report that Myers andHodgson collected, from non-professional sources, the facts uponwhich our present knowledge of these obscure phenomena is

based. Let us hope that the Hodgson Memorial research at

Harvard will enable Massachusetts to make amends for thebackwardness of other States. The mingled role of hinderingand helping which universities have played in the progress of

truth is indicated by several little facts below.

viii Preface.

I issue this essay in counnenioration of Anesaki's reception

by members of the Oriental Club of Philadelphia and other

friends of the author's, in the Graduate House of the University

of Pennsylvania, on Sunday, March 15, 1914. It is my hope

that we may be able to strengthen his hands in the propaganda

of world-peace and international understanding represented by

the Association Concordia of himself and his colleagues in Japan.

My hope is that this little sheaf of mine may be lost in a

more abundant harvest to be reapt by other hands.

A. J. E.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania,

April, 19T4.

MODERN TIMES

TWENTIETH CENTURY

190 .—*Birth of

I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files o{ time— Tennyson.

•Write your own name on this line, and fill in your birth-date.

3

Twentieth Century.

1901. Deaths of Myers and Victoria.

1907 and 1908.—Aiirel Stein and Paul Pelliot discover Budd-

hist Scriptures on the frontier of China, in ancient

vernaculars of the Parthian Empire (fulfilling Sweden-

borg's vision of 1766 and connecting the Buddhist

and Christian religions).

1910.—Mark Twain fulfils his own prediction by " going out

"

with Halley's Comet.

NINETEENTH CENTURY1808

—

Napoleon at Madrid aboliihet the Spanish Inqui*

sition.

1814.

—

George Stephenson combines the locomotive withthe railway at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

1S38.—Phineas Quimby, of Maine, heals by mesmerism, but

during the next decade develops a system of mental

healing by self-analysis.

1842.

—

Ashley Cooper (.later Earl of Shaftesbury) compels

the British Parliament to abolish undergroundlabor for women and young children.

1851.—Prince Albert declares, at the first World's Fair in Lon-

don, that we are hastening toward the final unity of

mankind.

1.SG8.—Japan strikes into the current of modern life {The Meij'i).

1871.

—

Darwin's Descent of Man publisht in London.

1879.

—

Max Miiller publishes at Oxford the first volumeof the Sacred Books of the East.

1900.—Leonard Wood orders Wilson Gill to organize the schools

of Cuba into self-governing republics.

During the century the writings of Europeans are trans-

lated into the languages of India, Armenia and Japan,

thus paving the way for a planetary, instead of a pro-

vincial, culture. The steamship, the railroad and the

telegraph complete the planetary intercourse begun by

Alexander.

Nitrcteftith Century

1803.—Hoag, the Quaker, has a daylight vision, in the fields of

New York State, of the American Civil War

1807.—Fulton makes Fitch's steamboat a financial success at

New York.

1826.—July 4, Deaths of Adams and Jefferson.

1835.—Halley's Comet • birth of Mark Twain.

1843.—Elizabeth Barrett's Cry of the Children and Thomas

Hood's Soiti^ of the Shirt.

1851-1852.—Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's

Cabin at Washington and Boston. (Translated later

into twenty languages.)

1859.—Darwin's Origin of Species (London) revolutionizes bi-

ology by the doctrine of Evolution, and also geology

by showing us how to take account of the unknown.

18G0.—Huxley defends Evolution against the Bishop of Oxford.

1861-18G5.—The American Civil War abolishes negro slavery

and consolidates the Federal power.

1865.—Good Friday, death of Abraham Lincoln.

1873.—Birth of Anesaki, international scholar and champion of

world-peace.

1877.—Frederick Farrar, in Westminster Abbey,' destroys the

doctrine of endless hell.

1882.—Society for Psychical Research, at the University of

Cambridge, whose work, epitomized by Myers, estab-

lishes the life after death on a scientific basis.

1888.—Paul Passy's International Alphabet.

11)00.—Deaths of Ruskin and Max Miiller. Christians at Pekin

burn the last copy of the great Chinese cyclopedia of

the fifteenth century.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY1731.—The Library Company of Philadelphia (Franklin) the

first to lend books out : rapid spread of knowledge in

Pennsylvania.

Voltaire popularizes in Europe the ideas of Eng-lish thinkers and paves the way for the FrenchRevolution. (Encyclopedia).

1"^2.—Great Britain follows other nations in reforming thecalendar ("New Style"). Franklin flies his kite at

Philadelphia. .-':;,-.'

{Snatcht he a thunderbolt front the sky and sceptre

from tyrants.)

1757.—British Empire in India begins a new world-orderby connecting Europe and Asia.

1776.—Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia.First volume of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire at London.

1789.

—

The French Revolution : storming of the Bastille.

1790.—Philadelphia the capital of the United States : GeorgeWashington rents a house at li»0 High Street (now r)26,

528 and 530 Market Street). John Fitch's steamboatcarries passengers and freight all summer on the Dela-ware.

Write in suitable places anything about your own town which connecU itwith world-history.

Eighteenth Century

\/1741.—Handel's Messiah performed at Dublin. When repeated

in London in 1743, the King of England stands during

the Hallelujah chorus.

1749.—Enianuel Swedenborg (University of Upsal) declares in

London that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are

mythical (" composed historicals "). Posthumous pub-

lication at Gottingen of The Origin of the Earth, by

Leibnitz (Universities of Leipzig, Jena and Niirem-

berg) enlarges the ideas of Descartes and founds the

science of Geology.

1757.—Swedenborg's vision announcing a new Church.

1759. Halley's Comet. North America lost to the French.

1763._Zoroastrian ideas revived in Swedenborg's Divine Love

and Wisdom.

1766.—His vision of a lost sacred literature to be found in Cen-

tral Asia. Kant substantiates the facts about Sweden-

borg.

1771. First translation of the Zoroastrian Scriptures in Europe

at Paris. Swedenborg's Trtte Christian Religion at

Amsterdam. The University of Salamanca refuses to

recognize Newton and modern science.

1781.—Immanuel Kant, of Konigsberg, publishes his Critique

ofPure Reason at Riga.

1783. The Americans win their independence with the help of

France, Spain, Holland and India. The American

Revolution was a world-war :" not only did the Dela-

ware and the Thames resound with the din of arms, but

the Essequibo, the Guadalquivir, the Rhine, the Seine

and the Q,qx^%^%:'—{Pennsylvania Magazine, 1913.)

1795. Napoleon ends the French Revolution, but consolidates

its ideas. The American and French Revolutions

establish Religious Toleration in Christendom and

abolish judicial torture.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY1607.—Halley's Comet. Colony of Virginia founded by the

English : political beginning of the United States.

1609.—Galileo (professor at Pisa and Padua) uses the telescope

and the microscope. Kepler (University of Tiibingen)

publishes his New Astronomy at Prague.

1636.—Harvard University, the oldest in the United States

(older than many European ones: Gottingen, 1737 •

Berlin, 1809, etc.).

1649.

—

The English execute their King for misgovern-ment: Oliver Cromwell president of the Republic.

1665.—Isaac Newton (University of Cambridge) seeing an apple

fall at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire, discovers the law

of gravitation.

1G7S.—John Runyan publishes the First Part of Pilgrim''s Prog-

ress, written in prison at Bedford. (Translated since

into a hundred languages.)

1682.—Halley's Comet. William Penn founds Philadelphia.(The only treaty never sworn to, and the only treaty

never broken).

1683.—Vienna, besieged by the Turks, is delivered by JohnSobieski, King of Poland.

During this century the Dutch anil the English revive the ancient Hinduidea of Religious Toleration, but it did not become general among Christians

until the nineteenth century.

Seventeenth Century

1603.^Death of Elizabeth unites England and Scotland.

Shakespeare's Hamlet^ at London. (Its oldest knownmotive is found in a tale taken from India to China in

the third centurj- : a man carrying unconsciously his

own death-warrant.)

161G.—^Deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes.

1620.—Colony of Massachusetts.

1635.—Thinkers found the French Academy at Paris under

Cardinal Richelieu (after they have been meeting pri-

vately against the law).

1640.—University of Helsingfors, the oldest in Finland. (First

located at Abo.)

1643.—George Fox leaves home to found the Society of Friends :

unites in his personality the rain-maker, the spirit-.seer

and the psychic healer. (His Journal not publisht as

he wrote it until 1911, at the University of Cambridge,

where in 1655 the students had mobbed him.)

1697.— Peter the Great of Russia works as a shipwright at

Zaandam.

1700.—Leibnitz founds the Royal Academy of Berlin.

10

SIXTEENTH CENTURYRenaissance (=New Birth) afchi lecture brou^lit fromItaly to France. (St; Peter^s Cathedral, Rome.)

[Find a building in your own city in this style : e. g. the City Hall,Philadelphia.]

• ' '1 ' ... *

1517.—Martin Luther starts the Protestant Reformation.

1643.—Copernicus the Pole (University of Cracow) publishes at

Niiremberg his book on the revolution of the planets

round the sun : end of the Ptolemaic astronomy. :,

1."/I

1565.—St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States,

founded by the Spaniards.

ii'-i

11

Sixteenth Century

Michael Angelo paints the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

at Rome, and (later) designs the dome of St. Peter's.

Francis Xavier, the Spanish Jesuit, is licenst by a Japa-

nese lord to preach the doctrines of Buddha, under the

belief that Christianity was a sect of the mystical

school of Buddhism. Xavier much imprest by a ser-

mon in a Buddhist temple.

1526.—William Tyndale's English New Testament is publicly

burnt by the University of Oxford.

Italian scholars puzzled by fossils : only a few consider

them to be animal remains.

1551-1571.—University of Lima, the first in the New World.

1575.—University of Leiden, the first in Holland.

1591.—University of Dublin, the oldest in Ireland.

12

THE MIDDLE AGES

c;^c^/-».

FIFTEENTH CENTURY1429.—The King of France crowned in Rheinis Cathedral,

while Joan of Arc stands by. He had regained histhrone as the result of the capture of Orleans from theEnglish by this country girl, who saw visions andheard voices commanding her to lead the armies ofFrance.'

1431.—This Maid of Orleans, to-day the heroine of France, is

condemned by a Catholic court and burnt at Ro^bythe English. The Pope afterwards annulled the sen-tence.

1453.—The Turks capture Constantinople and end theOrsBco-Roman Empire.

1455.—The Old and New Testaments printed in Latin atMainz by Gutenberg.

1492.—Christopher Columbus, of Genoa, while trying to finda new way to India for the King of Spain, discoversAmerica.

.

The Jews, expelled from Spain by theInquisition, are tolerated in Turkey and Italy.

1498.—Vasco da Gama of Portugal re-opens the ancient Phoeni-cian route to India round the Cape of Good Hope.

15

Fifteenth Century

1409. University of Leipzig.

1411. University of St. Andrews, the oldest in Scotland.

1426. University of Louvain, the oldest in Flanders.

1456. Halley's Comet terrifies Constantinople.

1460. University of Bale, the oldest in Switzerland.

1472. University of Munich.

1477. Universities of Tiibingen and Upsal (the latter the oldest

in Sweden and located at the ancient sacred city of

the Goths).

1479. University of Copenhagen, the oldest in Denmark.

16

FOURTEENTH CENTURYDante's Divine Comedy, the national poem of Italy andepitome of Catholic belief.

Giotto's bell-tower {campanile) at Florence Cathedral.

1386.

—

University of Heidelberg, the oldest in Germany.(Begun thirty years before, but now founded by the

Pope.)

17

Foiirleenth Century

1343.—University of Pisa.

1348.—University of Prague.

1364.—Universities of Cracow and Vienna.

1378.—Chinese observation of Halley's Comet.

1400.—Death of Chaucer, whose Pardoner's Tale is a Buddhist

Birth-Story.

18

THIRTEENTH CENTURYLeonard of Pisa uses the Hindu numerals andArabic algebra (borrowed from (Irceksand Hindus).The Hindu numerals (as tliey are still correctly calledin Egypt) gradually superseded the Roman, except forclocks, the chapters of books, etc.

1215.—King John compelled to sign the Great Charter ofEnglish freedom at Runnymede, an island in theThames.

1 •220.—Cathedrals of Amiens and Salisbury begun. (Church ofthe Advocate, Philadelphia, in the same style.)

Francis of Assisi calls all creatures brothers or sisters,

including sun, moon and elements, and preaches a ser-

mon to birds.

Nichiren preaches in the streets of Kamakura and makesthe Gospel Lotus the apocalypse of Buddhism in Japan.

1274.—May-day. Dante at Florence, aged nine, meets Beatrice,aged eight, and becomes inspired for his work as thepoet of Italy.

39

Thirteenth Century

1207.—University of Paris.

1222.—University of Padua.

1224.—Francis of Assisi, two years before his death, after a

vision on Mount Alverno, discovers the stigmata, i. e.

marks on his own body corresponding to the wounds of

Christ. This fact, once doubted, has now been estab-

lisht by historical criticism and psychical research.

Buddha (under the title of Josaphat) appears, in The

Golden Legend, as a saint of the Roman Church.

(Prior recognition by the Eastern Church.)

1243.—University of Salamanca, the oldest in Spain.

Kublai Khan, the successor of Jenghiz, reprints the Budd-

hist scriptures and receives Marco Polo, who has trav-

eled from Venice to Pekin.

20

TWELFTH CENTURYThe century of universities : Bologna, Oxford and Cam-bridge.

Gothic Architecture in France. ("I believe that the

French nation, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,

was the greatest in the world ; and that the French notonly invented Gothic architecture, but carried it to

a perfection which no other nation has approacht,

then or since."

—

Ruskin.)

Honen, in Japan, forbidden by his murdered father to

aveiijje his death, becomes a Buddliist saint and preachesto birds and serpents.

21

Tzvelflh Century

99

ELEVENTH CENTURY

Omar of Naishapur, the astronomer-poet of Persia, whoseQuatrains were translated into English in the nine-

teenth century.

23

Eleventh Century

106G.—The Normans (Scandinavian pirates, now civilized by

the French) conquer .England, where they introduce

their Romanesque architecture (heavy pillars and round

arches).

First Crusade, beginning of long wars by Christians

against Muhammadans to reconquer Jerusalem.

24

TENTH CENTURY

972.—The Buddhist Scriptures and commentaries printed

by the Government of China from 130,000 blocks.

(Edition extant.)

987.— The Arabian Nights described as an ancient Persian

book, translated and altered by the Arabs.

1000.—Mahmud of Ghazni leads the Moslems against India.

These invasions end in the destruction of the Buddhist

University of Nalanda and the gradual disappearance

of Buddhism from India.

25

Tenth Century

932-953.—The Confucian Classics printed from wooden blocks

in China.

Gerbert (afterwards Pope Sylvester II) studies Hindumathematics in Spain.

Beginning of the Chinese encyclopedias.

26

NINTH CENTURY

864.—Date of a Chinese Buddhist printed book found in 1908.

Methodius converts the King of Bulgaria to the Chris-

tian religion by painting a picture of hell : the Kingconverts the Bulgarians by military force.

27

Ninth Century

871.—Alfred the Great of England.

874;—Northmen settle in Iceland, which became a peaceful seat

of learning during the wars of the Middle Ages. TheSagas compiled under the Northern lights and amidthe rumblings of Hekla.

28

EIGHTH CENTURY

732.—Battle of Tours keeps the Muhammadan religion

out of Europe (except in Spain).

750-755.—The Caliphates of Baghdad and Cordova consolidate

the Muhammadan Empire and spread the learning of

the Greeks and the Hindus from the Arabian Sea to

the Atlantic.

The Emperor of China forbids Christianity and Budd-

hism to be mixed.

800.—Charlemagne crowned at Rome ; he spreads the Christian

religion in Europe by military force.

29

Eighth Century

751.—The Arab governor of Samarkand brings home Chinese

paper-makers as prisoners of war. The Arabs after-

wards take the art into Europe.

754.—Boniface the Englishman, missionary to Germany, mur-

dered by the Frisians and buried in F'ulda Cathedral.

Harun-al-Rashid, Caliph of Baghdad, has two Hindu

physicians.

786.—A Christian and a Buddhist join in translating a Buddhist

text from a Central Asian vernacular into Chinese,

but the Emperor stops the work for fear that the two

religions may be confused.

30

SEVENTH CENTURY

622.—The Hejira (Flight) of Muhammad : the Year One of theMiihamniadan religion.

(If you got a letter from a Moslem, lie would date it twelve hundredand something.)

31

Seventh Century

Muhammad writes a sacred book, The Koran, which

makes him the third great prophet after Moses and

Jesus. The book confuses the stories of Christ and

Buddha. Text : JVe have sent ymt down iron for the

righteous war ! the leading spirit of the new religion,

which impelled it to conquer territory from the Zoroas-

trians, the Christians and the Buddhists. Emerson's

" trumpet-text " from the Koran : The heavens and the

earth and all that is between them, think ye we have

created them in jest f

662.—A Syrian astronomer praises the Hindu numerals. {Jour-

nal Asiatique, 1910.)

32

\

SIXTH CENTURY

The King of Persia orders the translation of Hindu moral

tales {The Five Books) which, during the Middle Ages,

are translated into Arabic and other tongues of Europe

and Asia [Bidpat or Piipay). About the same time

the story of Buddha is similarly translated and his title

Bodhisat is changed to Josaphat. During the Middle

Ages the story of St. Josaphat is translated into Chris-

tian languages from Greece to Iceland. Churches

bearing his name exist at Palermo and Philadelphia.

33

Sixl/i Century

St. Sophia Cathedral at Constantinople, the best example

of Byzantine architecture, built by Justinian, who also

codifies the Roman Law.

Ireland a famous seat of learning.

34

ANTIQUITY

FIFTH CENTURY

4

Fifth Century

410. —Rome sackt by the Goths: Britain left to the mercy of

English pirates.

St. Patrick, a Scotsman, spreads Christianity in Ireland.

38

FOURTH CENTURY

325.—The Council of Nicea, in Bithynia, makes Christianity a

political power (Constantine). About this time the

Church interpolates the Baptismal Charge and the

Trinitarian formula into the close of Matthew's Gos-

pel. {Hibbert Journal, 1902.)

Fa Hien, the first of the Chinese pilgrims, visits the Budd-

hist Holy Land and describes its benign civilization.

Takes Scriptures to China from India and Ceylon.

39

Fourth Century

40

THIRD CENTURYChristian writers praise the Buddhist civilization of Chi-

nese Turkestan {Serica).

The State religions of the Roman and New Persian

Empires punish nonconformists with torture and death,

(Origen and Mani.) This dangerous principle led, in

the Middle Ages, to the Italian and Spanish Inquisi-

tions.

The Gospd Lo/us^ translated from Sanskrit into Chinese,exalts the Buddha from an historical to a mystical

personage. (Hindu text of older date.)

41

Third Century

42

SECOND CENTURYPlutarch, a priest of the Greek religion at Chaeronea,

writes parallel Lives of famous Greeks and Romans.(His lives of the earlier Roman Emperors lost, and withthem his probable mention of the Christian religion.)

The Church publishes the Gospels, Aristion addingthe Mark Appendix to take the place of Peter's lost or

supprest account of the Resurrection.

117.—Death of Trajan, whose war with the Parthians marks the

high tide of the Roman Empire.

About 148.—A Prince of Parthia goes to China, where he trans-

lates Buddhist Scriptures into Chinese.

Ptolemy of Alexandria fixes the science of Astron-omy for 1400 years.

The New Testament begins to be translated into foreign

languages (Old Latin and Old Syriac versions).

43

Second Century

105.—The Chinese make paper from bark, hemp and rags, after

making it for centuries from silk-waste.

Probable period of the oracle which frightened the

Romans away from the Persians in the third century.

{An oracle was remembered which markt the River

Tigris as the fatal boundary of the Roman arms.—Gibbon, Chap. XII.)

44

FIRST CENTURY

The Four Great Powers of the Earth:

Rome.Parthia.

India.

China.

Bucldliisni the most powerful religion ; Mazdeism (Zoro-

aster's Persian faith) second.

Jesus heals the sick by arousing an affectionate faith in

himself.

30?

—

The Crucifixion at Jerusalem. Parthians and other

Orientals present at the founding of the Christian

religion. (Acts II. 0.)

67.

—

Buddhism officially enters China, where its Scrip-

tures are gradually translated."0.—Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans: Josephus

the Jew, whose history has been transmitted by Chris-

tians only.

The Apostles and Evangelists write the New Tes-

tament, which gives the Golden Rule to Europe and

(later) to America,

Death of the Apostle John.

45

First Centttry

12.—Augustus burns spurious oracles at Rome.

Posidonius, the Syrian, teaches Greek and Oriental culture

to Cicero and others at Rhodes.

Coins of Kanishka, Buddhist emperor in Central Asia, have

Buddha's name in Greek letters and his image with

halo. (Date perhaps earlier or later.)

Paul gives the earliest and most authentic account of the

apparitions of the Risen Jesus, including one to himself

(I Corinthians XV. 3-8). Another authentic account,

almost as old, is preserved by the First Gospel (Matthew

XXVIIT. 16-20) probably taken from the lost ending

of Mark.

64.—Fire at Rome ; martyrdom of Christians, Peter and Paul

probably among them. Destruction of records in this

fire and in the wars in Italy and Judea that followed

cause a gap in the history of early Christianity.

79.—Eruption of Vesuvius kills Pliny the Elder, whose Natural

History states that the [Buddhist] civilization of Cey-

lon has abolisht slavery and lawsuits and made capital

sentences appealable to a jury, while the king can be

impeacht and executed.

One hundred and twenty-seven surgical instruments de-

scribed in Hindu books of medicine (perhaps earlier).

46

SAEC. I—B. C.

The Chinese Empire extends to the Pamirs and opens upthe silk trade with Rome, thru Turkestan and Syria :

Sse-ma-tsien, the first systematic Chinese historian.

The Golden Rule appears (but perhaps earlier) in theJewish-Persian Book of Tobias or Tobit.

Roman conquest of Egypt opens up sea trade withIndia.

Virgil sings of a new Golden Age.

2-—The Buddhist Scriptures already in a vernacular of CentralAsia. Birth of Christ (according to Luke III. 1 and 23).

47

Saec. I.—n. C.

82.—The Sibylline Books burnt in their temple at Rome during

civil war. Etruscan prophets proclaim a new age of

the world.

Lucretius at Rome immortalizes in wonderful verse the

Greek philosophy about the origin of the world.

44.—Brutus kills Julius Crcsar, who has founded the RomanEmpire.

48

SAEC. II.—B. C.

Judicial torture abolisht in India by the Law Bookof Manu, whicli was probably compiled from now

onwards from older law-books.

1-16.—The Romans destroy Carthage and annex Greece.

Book of Daniel, one of the last in the Old Testament

:

vision of a MEMBER OF THE HUMAN RACEwho shall triumph over brutal powers and establish a

world-religion. (The vision itself may be older).

4a

Saec. Il.—B. C.

About 150.—Hipparchus, of the Bithynian Nicea, the founder

of Greek astronouiy, quotes eclipses observed at Baby-

lon since B. C. 621.

Tlie Buddhist Scriptural stories of the Beloved Disciple

and the Penitent Brigand sculptured on the Great

Tope at the capital of Ceylon, as also the sacred folk-

tale of Prince Workmanquarter, one of the sources of

"St. Eustace." Delegates attend the opening cere-

monies "from Alexandria, the city of the Greeks."

{Great Chronicle of Ceylon.)

50

SAEC. Ill—B. C.

Euclid of Alexandria writes his Elements of Geometry.

Asoka (or Asoko), Buddhist Emperor of India, writes extant

Rock Edicts, establishing RELIGIOUS TOLERA-TION and medical aid for man and beast. Makes a

list of favorite Buddhist Scriptures. Mentions five

Greek Kings to whom he introduced his religion : one

of them, Ptolemy Philadelphus, enlarges the Alexan-

drine Library and begins to translate the Sacred Books

of the East (Septuagint).

51

Sacc: ///.—/?. C.

Buddhist sacred folk-tales (Jatakas) sculptured on the tope of

Bharahat (Bliarhut) in India : among them T/ic Fig-

tree Stag, one of the sources of " St. Eustace." Thestories begin their travels thru Persia into Europe,

emerging, in later ages, in Esop's Fables and The

Arabian Nights.

52

\SAEC. IV.—B. C.

399.—Socrates drinks the hemlock at Athens, after dis-

coursing in prison on the immortality of the soul.

Xenophon writes the Life of Socrates, and Plato his

323.—Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon, after

founding Alexandria, Samarkand and otlier cities

of exchange between East and West. Greek language

and art spread from Italy to India : beginnings of

planetary intercourse.

53

Saec. IV.—B. C.

54

SAEC. v.—B. C.

490.—The Battle of Marathon keeps the Zoroastrian religion

out of Europe.

Death of Buddha, beneath the twin sal trees, in the

North of India : "The Great Final Release {Nirvana)."

Age of Pericles : sculptures of Phidias on the Parthe-

non at Athens.

Beginning of the Buddhist Scriptures, which popularize

the Hindu doctrine of Evolution : gradual growth of

the universe thru countless eons ; connection between

animals and men.

55

Saec. V.—n. C.

Jivako of Rajagaha studies medicine at Taxila and heals

" twisted intestines " by taking them out : stitches

used. He also cures the King of Ujjain and Buddha

himself. (Buddhist Scriptures, Major Section on Dis-

cipline VIII.)

Ezra the scribe edits the Old Testament. A Jewish

colony on the Nile preserves the Babylonian romance

of Ahikar, quoted in Tobit and the Gospels and added

to the Arabian Nights.

432.—Inscription on a battlefield in Greece:

Ether has claimed their soii/s^ while earth their bodies

receivelh.

Hippocrates of Cos, the founder of Greek medicine.

56

SAEC. VI —B. C.

Jewisli Captivity in Babylon : prophets Ezekiel and the

" Second Isaiah."

Rise of European science among the Greeks of Asia

Minor, in contact with the Babylonians and Persians,

the latter in contact with the Hindus. Thales of Mile-

tus and Pythagoras of Sainos.

Births of Buddha (India) and Confucius (China)

:

both proclaim the Golden Bule. Buddha popular-

izes tlie Hindu conception of Nirvana (a state of bliss

here and hereafter by complete destruction of selfish-

ness), and coins the word Gospel to denote a world-

religion. He also teaches the sick to heal themselves

by concentrating the mind upon some truth.

538.—Cyrus sends the Jewish Exiles home : Babylonia andPalestine Persian provinces. Beginning of Zoroastrian

influence on the Old Testament : Ormazd and Ahri-man (2 Samuel XXIV. 1= 1 Chronicles XXI. 1.).

57

Saec. VI.—B. C.

Buddha forbids five hurtful trades

:

1. Weapons.

2. Slave-trade.

3. Butchery.

4. Liquor-dealing.

5. Poisons.

{Book of Fives, in the Numerical Collection. This Scrip-

ture may be as late as Asoka, but the spirit of the pro-

hibition is Buddha's.)

The Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, buys the

remainder of the Sibylline Books (in Greek verse).

58

SAEC. VII —B, C.

Non-resistance and silent worship taught in India. The Hin-

dus (perhaps earlier) establish an aristocracy upon a

moral principle : abstinence from killing. They de-

velop a crude form of the doctrine of Evolution, con-

necting animals and men. They also teach the un-

reality of matter (maya).

Prophet Jeremiah exhorts the Jews not to waste lives in fighting

a world-power (Babylon).

Birth of Lau-ts3,* the Chinese mystic, who taught love to ene-

mies and the simple life.

* The inverted e, in the International Alphabet, represents the obscure

vowel in "America" (amerika).

59

Saec. VII.—n. C.

60

SAEC. VIII -B. C.

Prophets Amos, Isaiah and Micah. The books of the

last two transmit the sacred oracle about the Final

Peace and world-religion.

722.—First Chinese recorded eclipse. (Gibbon, Chapter XXVI,note 23.)

61

I

Saec. VIII.—B. C.

62

SAEC. IX.—B. C.

Prophets Elijah and Elisha. Conception of God as a silent

power.

Carthage ("New City") founded by the Phenicians, who have

the sea-trade of the world and popularize the Alphabet.

63

Sacc. IX.—B. C.

Beginning of authentic Chinese history, according to Sse-ma-

tsien. (Gibbon, Chapter XXVI, note 23.)

64

ADDENDA1862.—Mrs. Patterson (afterwards Eddy) writes in the Portland

Courier for November 7, that Pliineas Qniniby cures

by Truth : "this truth whicli he opposes to the error

of giving intelligence to matter and placing pain where

it never placed itself, if received understandingly,

changes the currents of the system to their normal

action." She denies that it is spiritualism or animal

maenetism.

1872.—Geneva Tribunal prevents war between the United

States and Great Britain.

05

Buddhist

and Christian Gospelsnow first compared from the originals

BY ALBERT J. EDMUNDS, M.A.

EI>ITEI) BV

M. ANESAKI, LiTT. D.,

PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS SCIENCE IN THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF

TOKVO, AND PROFESSOR OF JAPANESE LITERATURE

AND LIFE IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

FOURTH EDITION. WITH POSTSCRIPTS

1912 ANii 1914

2 Vols.

PlIlLADGI.PillA ;

INNES (t SONSlJ9-i,VS N. Twelfth SI.

— ^ I.I I Mjim

POSTSCRIPT

1910.—Death of Leo Tolstoy.

What appears to be a spnrious document is now (1914) going the rounds

of the press. I summarize it, but suspend judgment as to its authenticity.

Tolstoy's vision of a world-war, to begin in the South-

east of Europe "about 1912." About 1915 a North-

ern Napoleon is to arise in the ranks of letters, whowill dominate Europe for ten years. After 1925 there

will be a United States of four world-powers : Anglo-

Saxon, Latin, Slavic, Mongolian. A Mongolian Slav,

now living, is to found a world-religion.

Note.— It is to be hoped that the Tsar will one day give us the original

Russian of this vision, now in his archives (?) according to the Chicago /Rec-

ord //era/d.

1913, June and July.

—

Visions seen by many in the South

of France, of Joan of Arc in armor, leading the

King to Rheims. (See 1429.) On August 26, C^cile

Lainillot, a miller's daughter, at Alzonne, Department

of Aude, sees flaming letters in the sky and copies

them. They prove to be a Latin invocation to the

Maid of Orleans. (Correspondence to T/ie Public Led-

ger of Philadelphia, dated from Paris, September 12,

1913.)

Note.—I am writing to French scholars for accurate iiccounts of these

things. If they be true, we can believe the visions in Josephus which preceded

the siege of Jerusalem. (See also Mark XIII). Let us pray that the white

robed maidens and crowns of roses in the visions of our French friends maysymbolize victory for the powers of light.

67

T*

Addendum to Preface, p. vii.

I have purposely introduced a few coincidences, to remind

the student that such things must be reckoned with. Thus,

the fact that Abraham Lincohi, who died that America might

live, was stricken down on Good Friday, would be proof to the

average German critic of the future that the Lincoln Saga was

a Christian myth. The road to truth lies between the quag-

mire of credulity and the barbed-wire fence of doubt.

In a few cases facts belonging to a man's later life are

groupt with the main mention of him : thus, Josephus wrote

his books near the end of the first century, and Fa Hien

returned to China in 415.

Addendum to p. 49.

Daniel VII. 9-14, Revised Version. .1 son of man is a Sj'riac phrase

meaning a human being. The burnt beast is the Mazdean serpent who is

destroyed at the Resurrection. (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V, p. 129:

Bundahish, based upon a lost book of Avesta. ) While Buddhism in the NewTestament is a mere tinge, mostly in Luke, Mazdeism is a radical element in

both Testaments, especially in Daniel, Enoch, Tobit, the Gospels and the

Apocalypse.

Addendum to p. 61.

Micah IV. l-5=Isaiah II. 1-5.

G8

.V II IIJMBI-

THE WORLD-WAR!

GERMANY ALONE.

Germany is making an outcry that she is fighting the world

alone. Has this never happened before? Nay, it is the fate of

every world-power. In the American Revolution, Great Britain

was fighting the world alone. In the French Revolution and

the wars of Napoleon, it was France. It is an old story : Jesh-

urun waxt fat and kickt. Well did the Earl of Chatham say in

the House of Lords :" Fifteen years ago this people was the

terror of the world !" Ay, there's the rub. We don't want any

nation to be the terror of the world. The consequence was that

England became too arbitrary, so that America made war upon

her in 1775, France in 1778, Spain in 1779, and Holland in

1780. In the same year a powerful Muhammadan State in

India took the side of the French and the Americans, and for-

gotten battles were fought in the land of the Vedas to aid the

Stars and Stripes. Not only so, but again in 1780 "the ArmedNeutrality " was formed against Great Britain by Russia, Swe-

den and Denmark to resist the right of search and protect the

commerce of the world. The Prussians and the Austrians

joined the alliance in 1781 ; Portugal and Turkey in 1782 ; and

the Kingdom of Naples in 1783. Consequently, when we wonour independence, Great Britain was fighting five nations in

arms and eiglit in diplomacy. We conquered her by a coalition

against a common tyrant. In the summer of 1780, forty English

ships were captured near the Azores by France and Spain, and

taken to Cadiz. In the summer of 1781, the Dutch and English

navies met on the Dogger Bank in the German Sea and knockt

each other to pieces. Two fleets of battered hulks reeled back

to Amsterdam and London. All this fighting was not merely

69

I

to help the United States, but to prevent the Government at

Westminster from giving law to the planet. As I said last year

in The Pennsylvania Magazine, not only did the Delaware and

the Thames resound with the din of arms, but the Essequibo,

the Guadalquivir, the Rhine, the Seine and the Ganges.

After a lull it was the turn of France. The French Repub-

lic frightened Europe. In 1792, the Austrians and the Prus-

sians declared war upon it, and in 1793 they were backt up by

the fleets and armies of the English, the Dutch, the Spaniards

(no mean power then), the Neapolitans, and the duchies of Ger-

many. We all know the result : the Nile, Trafalgar, Copenha-

gen, Borodino, Leipzig, Waterloo. Well was it said that the

bones of French soldiers lay scattered over Europe, from Mos-

cow to Lisbon.

From 1S54 to 1856 four nations combined against Russia,

with two more in the background. Now it is Germany's turn.

She need not be crusht, but merely put in her place. We love

Germany. We lift our hats to her scholars. No nation under

heaven ever made so thoro-going an attempt to live by truth

and science, imless it be the French. That these two powers

should fight is a frightful tragedy. But it would be a fright-

fuller one if either were to wipe out the other and give law to

us all. We do not want a War Lord to tear off ultimatums

frotn a check-book and bandy tliem about Europe. We do not

want a Charlemagne or a Bismarck telegraphing his edicts from

a Rome, a Berlin or a Constantinople. What we do want is a

new United States of nations, such as Tennyson foresaw in

Locksley Hall, describing, back in the forties, a world-war in

the air. It was to end

In the Parliament of Man, the federation of the world.

Philadelphia :

August 9, 1914.

Printed by Paul C. Stockhausen,

53-55 N. 7th St., Philadelphia.

Postscript to History Simplified Copyright 1914, by Albert J. Edmunds.

70

W 80

^^'y\'m^.'.^''^^

°^ *•'

VJ t' * ^ V ' * •» c*

/\--.^-->*^%.-:.*" "I-,

••• ^\-. -*

.'. '-n.o* r

t .0, "o0^ ..•/•'* <?• '^

i'.

°". /^'^^\ ^'^;^'X /'*^fe-\ ^' ••^- "- -^"^ *is^'

*o,'-'T7r»\A^••. •©

'^ .^"^ /^..-..\<> 'r.T* .o'

>vr„

..<-

^0' "V'*;?*?r»*V^ V*^^^''*^'' "V^^^^-'^**' "^o^^^^i^'r/ «o

L'>- /•;^;^'\ c°^^|s,:X'>o //iir^/^ c°^l^•'•^°o ,^*\c;^

^* .-dafe-. **^<.* ..>^.. \/ ..^fe--. V** :A: %/ •JK- *W*a9 •ill.'* >

V '^rt^'- .^^"^ ^o,. *'^.- ^^0'^ ^ ^ v^^^^•^^** "^^^ *^^^' ^°

.^'^'%..

t*.o<

. % ,0* .JJ--, *o.

V .**'% •:f^m.-- ..^ \rT'-.^A

O. .0^ •ill'* -> V^ .•••- cv

.• .^'%. •:V

i'V

«^'

.» .vvv, *«.^/ .j|v, *^^^^» ..^. *«,^/ ,.^-, *, _,. .:

>^ .•••••*'<

'^C

A" <t, • • • <-

r>^.-t?

y^^^

cv »

^ /..l^-^"°. ..^*.w.^/"-^ co'.^-^"-o:•. -t.